Elliott Hawkins speaks from the grave, boasting about his life as a respectable, well-connected man. He looked like Lincoln, attended church, supported property and order, and quietly worked to protect railroads and business interests in the legislature. He admits there were whispers that he was a lobbyist, but he brushes that aside. Even his tombstone flatters him, with the biblical words “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The tone is smug and self-satisfied until the final lines, when he turns on idealists who accomplished little and died without monuments. He asks them how they like being silenced by the dust of his triumphant career. The mood is ironic and unsettling: Hawkins presents himself as blessed and successful, but the poem makes his self-righteousness feel hollow, even cruel.
Elliott Hawkins — Summary
I looked like Abraham Lincoln. I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship, But standing for the rights of property and for order. A regular church attendant, Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you Against the evils of discontent and envy And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union, And to point to the peril of the Knights of Labor. My success and my example are inevitable influences In your young men and in generations to come, In spite of attacks of newspapers like the Clarion; A regular visitor at Springfield When the Legislature was in session To prevent raids upon the railroads And the men building up the state. Trusted by them and by you, Spoon River, equally In spite of the whispers that I was a lobbyist. Moving quietly through the world, rich and courted. Dying at last, of course, but lying here Under a stone with an open book carved upon it And the words “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” And now, you world-savers, who reaped nothing in life And in death have neither stones nor epitaphs, How do you like your silence from mouths stopped With the dust of my triumphant career?